News

[REVIEW] ‘Daughter of Dismay’ Crafts a Dismal Tale

Published

5 years ago

October 3, 2019

Imagery is a powerful tool in horror films, and the most powerful movies have images that stick in your head long after you leave the theater, or when you’re trying to sleep at night. Director James Quinn (Flesh of the Void) knows this well; his films have often been cited and even criticized for their shocking imagery. He often relies on framing the perfect image that represents the mood of his films, a skill learned from his experience with photography.

While his past work has featured disturbing and shocking imagery and storylines, his newest short, Daughter of Dismay, has a more muted and dreary approach, showcasing a more restrained and gothic filmmaking style.

The short also boasts many impressive feats. It is the first narrative short film shot in 70 mm film for IMAX and boasts multiple award-winning crew members, such as Joseph Bishara (Insidious, The Conjuring) who did the score, producer Justin Schenck (The Exorcist TV show), foley artist Martin Langenbach (Suspiria) and sound engineer Steve Maslow (Empire Strikes Back).

Without giving away the plot too much, the silent short follows an emotionally damaged witch who enters a forest to make sacrifices to fulfill her desires.

Overall, Daughter of Dismay creates a slow and “dismal” atmosphere that permeates throughout the landscape, which is almost a character itself here. While in some areas the short is held back by pacing issues and the character designs are a little over-the-top, some of the disturbing imagery near the end holds up to Quinn’s previous work, making a more mature and, dare I say, audience-friendly film.

The short begins with some imposing and grand landscape shots, which look all the more impressive in the IMAX format. The forest is a huge part of this short, and so the setting, Ohio, works here.

The first half’s landscape and music builds tension steadily throughout the short until an act of mutilation halfway through the film. In this otherwise relatively tame short, the mutilation scene is satisfying and nicely executed right in the viewer’s face. Where his other films have much more frequent gore in them, this buildup makes the scene much more meaningful and disturbing.

The whole short, which is about 8 minutes in length, feels like an ethereal nightmare. The actions of the characters are slow and drawn out. A feeling of dread permeates the short, with the viewer in the dark especially with the absence of dialogue.

One downside of the short is that the costuming and acting are too dramatic within the realistic setting and storyline. Some of the props and makeup seemed out of place and unnecessarily complicated. For example, the witch’s hair or the mask worn by another character. While they would have been more normal for Quinn’s other films, it just didn’t work here (although, I was a big fan of the witch’s nasty look).

While it is very moody and foreboding, not a lot happens. It would have been nice to see a little more story. If you were to see 10 images from the short, you would basically get the plot.

It’s nice to see Quinn expanding his work and getting more opportunities to create with his subversive take on cinema. I am excited to see where he takes Daughter of Dismay –especially since he is planning on extending it into a feature- but hopefully he will have the opportunity to smooth out some of the problem areas in that process.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Movies

‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

Published

20 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

^{High Desert Hell}

^{The Gemini Project}

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

Movies

‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

Published

22 hours ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

^{Happy Sad Confused}

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

'Civil War' Review: Is It Worth Watching?

News

Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2024

Timothy Rawles

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.